Golden Child
by Miss Maia
Summary: He was not a trouble maker; he never was. Totally on the contrary: he was a golden kid. He had inherited his father's blond hair and dexterity with words; he had coursing through his veins his mother's keen audacity and courage. Adding his natural easy going nature and intelligence to the mix, bam!, you had a perfect son. But he was fifteen and just so damn curious!


**Disclaimer: **I don't own the _Hunger Games_ trilogy; this is just an attempt at fun by playing with someone else's toys.

**Summary: **_He was not a trouble maker; he never was. Totally on the contrary: he was a golden kid. He had inherited his father's blond hair and dexterity with words; he had coursing through his veins his mother's keen audacity and courage. Adding his natural easy going nature and intelligence to the mix, bam!, you had a perfect son. And this would just make him feel worse when his parents find out what he had done. __But he was fifteen and just so damn curious!_

* * *

**Golden Child**

He rested his blond curls over his crossed arms on the table in front of him. The old creaking fan was unsuccessfully stifling the whispered conversation in the next room. He could hear the Principal's voice low over the phone, most likely calling his father.

Taking a deep breath, he tried to think of what he'd say to his parents. Especially to his mother.

He was fucked.

* * *

Rye's not a trouble maker; he never was. Totally on the contrary: he was a golden kid. He had inherited his father's blond hair and dexterity with words—the latter saved him from a lot of trouble in his childhood. He also had coursing through his veins his mother's keen audacity and courage. Adding his natural easy going nature and intelligence to the mix, bam!, you had a perfect son.

And this would just make him feel worse when his parents find out what he had done.

He should have known it would have led him to trouble. A few years ago, when his older sister was fifteen, she had done the same thing. Since Willow was never the "perfect kid", it wasn't such a surprise for his father, who was understandable and supporting of his sister. But his mother? Katniss had freaked out, yelled at her daughter until the girl was reduced to a puddling mess of tears and then broke down herself. That was a tense week. Now, five years later, he found himself doing the same.

Okay, not exactly the same, but his mother would lose it anyway. When Willow first started asking about the Hunger Games, both of their parents always evaded her questions. He knew his father had talked to her when Katniss wasn't around. Peeta hoped to calm the girl's heart before she tried to actually watch the Games.

But, on a cold December night, wearing her father's oversized sweater and snow boots, Willow snuck over to Uncle Haymitch's house and from it created a whole new set of questions. Differently from their parents, Haymitch was much more careless to answer her queries. The girl was a teenager, she'd learn about it eventually. Not only did he tell her about her parents' Hunger Games, but he also spent the night showing her the video. The damn video of her parents, thirty years younger, killing innocent children on live television—and making out on a desert beach. Rye couldn't tell what shocked his sister most.

He had watched the agonizing fight between his mother and his sister. How Katniss had found the video, how Willow first denied and then surrendered under her mother's steely gaze. How the snow melted from their father's sweater and joined his sister's tears as she trembled and confessed the truth. How they argued, cursed, humiliated each other and finally cried together. He was ten years old and watched everything with wide grey eyes, holding the doorframe so tightly that his nails bled, shrinking at each new shouted outrage. That was something new in the Everdeen-Mellark house. It was the first time he had heard his mother in an exalted voice and fighting with such voracity with his sister. It scared him.

After Katniss and his sister hugged each other in a tangled mass of dark hair, he promised to himself to never watch those Games. To never ask about those Games. To never think about those Games.

He almost succeeded.

That was five years ago, and Willow and Katniss were on perfectly good terms now. Nobody mentioned the Hunger Games anymore and their lives seemed to flow peacefully. Willow focused her curiosity on her studies and, after a couple of years of persuasion, managed to convince Katniss and Peeta to send her to study at the Capitol University. Rye was happy for his sister, though he missed her company in their oversized house. He also concentrated his teen pheromones into healthy activities like wrestling, painting and an eventual baking attempt (Peeta still hoped to see the boy baking; sadly for him, Rye had his mother's abilities in the kitchen).

The years passed calmly and Rye's curiosity was well controlled until a month ago.

It was his first Panem Modern History class. They had already learned about the First Rebellion and the New Rebellion. The Dark Days. He actually liked the extra attention the teachers gave him, knowing he was the son of the two symbols of the New Rebellion. He used to smile warmly to himself, seeing the face of his seventeen-year-old mother in his History book; she looked like a fighter in that black uniform, holding her bow like a true heroine. It was the same photo he had found on his locker, ripped out from the book, with carelessly written letters under his mother's name. "Murderer".

It took him almost a whole minute to fully understand what had happened. Rye had looked around the locker room, seeing if any of his wrestling companions were still in there. He had to find the one who had done this, he needed to. Who had the audacity to even suggest that his mother was a—

The image of his sister's clear blue eyes shining with tears had stopped his train of thought. He was five years back in time, in the living room where his mother and sister had fought, watching them arguing again.

_"Murderer!"_, the voice of his sister had echoed in his mind, making him tremble like five years ago. _"Murderer!",_ the girl had yelled between gritted teeth, tears tracing her olive face. _"Murderer!"_

The photo incident happened after their first class about the Hunger Games. Nobody in the class was old enough to have watched a Game, but they all listened to stories from their parents. Most of them at least, because it was a taboo in the Mellark's house. He had crumpled the paper between his fingers, but didn't have the courage to throw it away.

That day his curiosity came back in full force.

Everything he did, everything he touched, everything he thought; all of it was connected to that word: murderer. Was his mother a murderer? And his father? Had they killed because they felt pleasure doing so or because they had to? What were their Games like? How did his father lose his leg?

Rye couldn't sleep or think straight without wondering about the Games. He shamefully had to admit that maybe his sister—whose attitude he had loathed for five years—was right in trying to know more about their parents' Games.

Willow was in the Capitol, in her second year of college. She was the closest person he had to talk to.

"Forget about it, Rye," she had told him over the phone after he had guaranteed neither of their parents were in the house. "It's not worth it. Do you want to see daddy's leg being chopped off in full HD? Then watch it. But don't come looking for me when mom tries to kill you. Really kill you." She had hung up the phone before he could reply.

The truth was that he _did_. He wanted to see his dad's leg chopped off in full HD. He wanted to watch his mother singing over a little girl's dead body (this one he learned in class). He wanted to know why good people like his aunt had died.

And he was fifteen and just so damn curious.

* * *

"Your father is here," the Principal said when he entered the room. Rye was alone for almost an hour, which had led his thoughts to ramble.

Right after the Principal, he got a glimpse of his father. Peeta entered the room and just simply looked at his son for a moment. Peeta's azure eyes were an evident mix of pity and deception. Rye's grey orbs showed nothing but shame. The teenager was the first one to break the eye contact, covering his face with his hands.

"Could you leave us alone for a minute?" Peeta asked in an expressionless voice, passing a hand over his blond hairs that at the start of each year had more white companions. Peeta adjusted his old sweater around his broad shoulders that matched perfectly with his son's increasing form. Rye bit his lower lip seeing that it was the same sweater his sister had used five years ago. He hated that sweater.

"Of course Mr. Mellark."

Rye sighed at the tone the Principal used with his father. Everyone had just this politeness, this respect when addressing to him. He had just wanted to know firsthand why people treated his father like this.

"Look at me," Peeta's voice showed emotion now, and Rye was afraid to say it was anger. "I said look up at me!"

The sudden slap on the table made Rye tilt his head up and look with wide eyes at his father.

"How's your eye?" Peeta's voice was calmer as he touched his son's black eye, a reminder of the earlier fight.

"I'm fine," Rye mumbled under his breath, trying hard not to cry and shoving his father's hand away from his face.

They stood in silence for a minute. Peeta took three deep breaths before speaking again.

"You should have come to me. After what happened to Willow, you know this wouldn't have ended up well."

"But dad—"

"You are not a child anymore, Rye. You know now that, at your age, a lot of people were already fighting to survive." Peeta scratched his bicolor beard. His beard was losing ground to the white hairs much faster than his hair.

"When your mother finds out, she'll snap. She was devastated when Willow confronted her, but you..." Peeta's voice faltered a little, and he cleared his throat. "You are not the rebellious one, Rye. This isn't like you. Getting into fights, arguing with teachers, disobeying us ... I'm very disappointed."

Rye chocked back a sob, trying to cover it with cough. If it was being this hard with his father, how would he face his mother?

"You need to tell her," Peeta continued, resting a supportive hand on his son's shoulder. "She's probably home already and wondering why we're not there. I'll be there with you, but you will tell her yourself what you've done."

* * *

The walk back to their house never felt so long and desolate. Peeta struggled with his prosthetic leg to walk right next to Rye, but the latter avoided any physical touch. He was lost in thought of how he'd explain everything to his mother.

The fight would be easy, really. He had found out who put the photo of his mother in his locker. Immobilizing his arm in a painstaking arm-lock was the harmless thing he had thought about doing to him. Maybe breaking the boy's arm was a little too much, but he had a black eye to show that the fight wasn't so one-sided. His father knew Rye was strong and could fight; after all, Peeta always watched his wrestling matches at school. But Rye didn't know that what scared his father most was the fact that his son had so coldly broken another person's bone. Peeta feared the idea that maybe his son had more of him than he previously thought. Rye also wondered: was he more alike the calm baker that his father is today or the seething hateful teenager that killed a man with his bare hands in his second Hunger Games?

Rye had started the fight because he'd wanted to protect his mother's image. But he'd also wanted to kill the part of him that agreed with the boy. He had watched her Games; both of them, actually. Rye had entered Haymitch's house and robbed the old mentor's video collection—the specific collection about The Hunger Games. Differently from his sister, Rye was cautious to hide his videos. He walked with the flash drive in his pocket twenty-four hours a day and smiled warmly at his parents, even though he had watched them kill people the night before.

He didn't stop there. Every night, when both of his parents were sound asleep, Rye watched a different Hunger Games. He did this for three weeks, watching all the videos from the victors he knew. He watched fifteen-year-old Johanna Mason—who always sent the best gifts for him on his birthday—mischievously kill other kids with a sharp ax. He had seen when Aunt Annie's eyes lost their sanity when her tribute companion was beheaded, and how she had swam among corpses to survive. He saw his grandmother hugging a friend at the reaping, the same friend whose hand Haymitch held while she slowly bled to death. He widened his eyes when he saw his friend Fin's father, who looked exactly like him, throwing a trident, piercing a girl's torso to a tree. Rye bit his hand when Enobaria gnawed a boy's neck, bathed in hot, steaming blood as she crowed victoriously. He saw Beetee throwing up after smelling the burning flesh of the careers he had toasted in an electrified trap.

Rye saw all of this and continued to smile at his mother in the mornings, lying when he said the reason why he was looking so tired was the fact that he was studying too much.

He lied to her. Lied to his father. For three weeks, he pretended to be okay when every night he was watching a new murderer being turned into a hero.

The worst of it was that he hadn't regretted it and confessed. He was actually caught. Haymitch was the one that confronted him. And then came the fight, the arguing at school, the confession of the videos; everything now was a mess in his head.

Though one thing was sure: his mother would hate him. She would hate him not just because he had watched the videos; she'd hate him for the lies. For the fact that he looked deep into her eyes and lied to her. How do you ask forgiveness for something like that? How do you ask Katniss Everdeen-Mellark to forgive you when you lie to her day after day? When you repeat what had almost destroyed her heart years ago?

She accepted Willow's pardon because his sister acted on an impulse. She had gone to Haymitch's and had watched the video. And she freaked out too. But Rye... Rye acted like a sociopath. He stole the files, watched them more than once, stopped, rewound them. He even laughed when he watched his mother's attacker being killed by a stone to her skull. What was wrong with him?

Rye took a deep breath as they entered the house. He could smell dinner and his mother was tuning a nostalgic song. He watched as her smile faded away at the sight of his black eye and the exchange of glances she shared with his father. Peeta simply shrugged and pointed to Rye, who still couldn't meet his mother's stare. Katniss' expression line between her eyes just deepened as she asked her son:

"What's wrong, Rye? What happened?"

"I got into a fight," he answered while he nudged the carpet with his shoes. He wanted to confess, he really wanted to, but at the same time he was so afraid.

After all, he was her golden boy.

"A fight? Why?" She crossed the distance between them and protectively touched his shoulder, which made him flinch. He only feared her gesture because maybe that would be the last time she would touch him with love.

"Another boy," Peeta just couldn't watch his son suffering like this and not interfere. "Another boy called you, I mean us, murderers." Peeta took a long breath as he let the information sink in Katniss' mind.

"That is not an excuse to fight. That's no reason it had to come to blows," Katniss said in a low, reproachful tone.

"Why? Because it's true?" Rye finally met his mother's quicksilver gaze. He watched as her eyes darkened, her mouth turning into a thin line, the blood leaving her face.

That was not a good way to start to ask for forgiveness.

"You don't know what you're talking about," she said with her eyes locked on the reflection of her own, her son having the same silver gaze.

The tears gave him away. He started to sob quietly under his mother's stare, and she looked questionably at Peeta. Peeta answered with a solemn nod.

She knew then; she knew that he had watched the Games. Her Games.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..." Rye said between sharp breaths, failing to control his stuttering.

"Look at me," Katniss' voice was weak, but she held firmly to her son's shoulder. Peeta made an attempt to reach them, seeing his son wincing under her strong grip.

Katniss' chin was lifted up slightly to meet her son's face. He was getting taller each year, and had long passed her slim frame. When he could control his breath enough to look at her, she continued.

"And what do you think, son?" The first tears traced down her olive cheeks. Peeta bit down on his lips; depending on how Rye answered, they could have a battle of Armageddon on their hands. Willow had confronted her mother. If Rye did the same now, Peeta had no idea what Katniss was capable of doing.

_Murderer. Murderer._

The mantra was ringing in his head, tuned by his sister's voice.

But, again, he was her golden child.

"No," he said barely loud enough for his parents to hear. "No."

Katniss nodded her head, trembling, pulling her son into a hug.

"I'm sorry. I had to. I watched all the recent Games. I had to, I just had to..." His chin rested on his mother's shoulder, and he was mumbling the words between sobs and tears. Peeta approached them and hugged his family.

"Please forgive me," Rye mumbled with quivering lips.

Katniss didn't answer. She just hugged her son closer. He wasn't aware that this conversation was one of her worst nightmares; that she always dreaded the day her child would wonder about her past life. The day he'd be truly doubtful of her actions, like she always had been in her adolescence. She had killed people. She had wanted to kill people. Trying to protect her child from these thoughts was her main goal as soon as she found out she was pregnant.

They ate a cold dinner. Nobody was brave enough to speak. The three pairs of bloodshot eyes never looking up as they silently ate with troubled hearts. Peeta went to bed early, claiming he had a headache. Rye saw how worried his mother was, wondering if his father would have an episode. He himself didn't even remember the last time his father lost control and thrashed in a forgotten room.

Rye was silently watching the fireplace when he felt his mother's tiny hand on his shoulder. She joined him by the hearth, and they both stared quietly into the flames for some minutes.

He would have done the same in her place. He'd have killed those kids with the same coldness his mother had shown in those videos. He would have killed even more people than his mother. He would use his father's good looks and his mother's skill with the bow to kill each smiling face that crossed his path in a Hunger Games.

But Rye would never say it to his mother. She'd die if she knew he could be as cold blooded as she was.

So he took a deep breath and lay on his mother's lap, welcoming her caress on his blonde curls.

Because, after all, he was the golden child.

* * *

**Author's Note: **I believe that the OOC part of the story is how Katniss and Peeta would raise their children. I think they'd explain about the Hunger Games and would be very careful with questions.

About the names: "Willow" seems perfect for me. It's a plant's name—that fits Katniss' family perfectly—and it's in the so-famous song Katniss sings in the books. "Rye" sounds... okay. "Mellark Food Names" style. Tell me what you think if you have an opinion. I had thought about "Prisca" and "Pat" for different reasons. "Prisca" is a Romans name, and we know Suzanna Collins likes Greek/Rome culture. It's also a name of a remarkable woman that appears in the Romans book in the bible (normally women weren't mentioned in such texts).

Special thanks to the betareaders: **Anabelle9** and **LoveInChains**.

Thank you for reading,

Maia


End file.
